Birdbrains

We do not know to what extent and whether the technological development and the direction of civilization repeat the choices made by evolution. We have left the nineteenth-century belief that evolution is only the sum of random choices, although its teleology also does not fit in our heads. The dominant "strategy" (since there is no ultimate goal, it is impossible to talk about a strategy Sensu stricto) is to increase the ability to produce energy. Energy resources, nuclear fusion, renewable sources, all the same to guarantee more energy. The history of aesthetics provides examples that the attitude towards continuously increasing energy resources is a tendency with at least a thousand years of tradition. Flaming Gothic, mannerism, baroque, eclecticism of the end of the nineteenth century, a hundred years later, playful postmodernism are the ridges of regular (chronologically) waves of amplification, ostentious manifestation of forms, the creation of which required the extravagance of energy and disregard for the scale of effort. A different strategy, based on finding ways to save, constantly reduce energy demand, is much weaker. Social metaphors associate it with poverty, weakness, impotence, renunciation. With what most of us prefer not to be associated with. It is no coincidence that minimalism appeared as a clear trend so late (excluding monasticism), only after the industrial revolution, in the overwhelming chaos of big cities. 

Our little protoplasts, the first mammals, were not beings with the greatest power in the ecosystem at that time. On the contrary, they supposedly balanced in the shadow of majestic rulers every day devouring gigantic portions of high-energy food, flatting with baroque mouches on "their" territory. It has just turned out that "bird cerebellums", microscopic compared to our organ consuming 1/5 of the body's energy, are at least three times more efficient than we thought. Avian neurons need only 1/3 of the energy consumed by the neuron of an average mammal. The ratio of the amount of energy to the amount of processed information is quite a sensible parameter for assessing the development of both living beings and civilizations. I must have liked it on the Mountain. Especially since after these great ones there was always a mountain of waste.

We don't really know how to define information. But we are already convinced that this will require the provision of more energy. What more massive ministers dream of nuclear power plants three times a week, alternating with blackouts/gloom (In real life).

Avian neurons consume three times less glucose than mammalian neurons, with “Current Biology”, Volume 32, Issue 19, October 10th 2022, Pages 4306-4313.e4; 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/Article/abs/pii/S0960982222012192